Unit Details

NKPA 10th Division

10th KPA Division The Division was organized in April 1950 with the 25th,
27th, and 29th Infantry Regiments using experienced KPA cadres and new
recruits.

Regiments 25, 27, 29

10th Division (North
Korea)

The
10th Infantry Division (Motorized), was a military
formation of the
Korean People's Army during the 20th Century. It may have been
formed at
Sukch'on as early as March or April 1950 and consisted of a cadre of
experienced People’s Army officers and NCO’s and new recruits.

From the date of its formation to June 25, it trained at Sukch'on,
then moved to
Chaeryŏng for a month’s training under Soviet advisors in night
fighting and
mountain warfare. The unit was originally composed of the
25th (Motorized),
27th (Motorized) and the
29th Regiment (Motorized) in addition to an artillery regiment,
though the
Korea
Institute of Military History indicates that the unit
may have been established with the
107th Regiment rather than the 29th Infantry and that it also
included an unidentified armor regiment.

Was part of the North Korean advance from
Sŏul to
Taejŏn.

Fought in the
Battle of Pusan Perimeter.

June 25, 1950

This shows only seven (7)
NKPA divisions, with the other three, the 105th was actually a brigade, 13th
and 15th were reserve.

July 10, 1950

July 12, 1950

On the 12th, a
second regiment, the
24th Infantry, an all-Negro regiment and the only
regiment in the Eighth Army having three battalions, arrived in Korea.
Col.
Horton V. White commanded it.

The
27th Infantry at first went to the
Uisŏng area, thirty-five miles north of
Taegu. General Kean opened his first 25th Division command post in Korea at
Yongch'on, midway between Taegu and
P'ohang-dong.

On 12, July General Dean
ordered him to dispose the 25th Division, less one battalion which was to
secure
Yŏnil Airfield, so as to block enemy movement south from
Ch'ungju. One
regiment was to be in reserve at
Kŭmch'ŏn ready to move either to the Taejon
or the
Ch'ŏngju area. [08-14]

July 13, 1950

The next day, 13 July, the 27th Infantry moved
from Uisŏng to
Andong on Eighth Army orders to take up blocking positions
north of the town behind ROK troops.

The enemy advances down the mountain
backbone of central Korea and on the east coast had assumed alarming
proportions. The attack on Yŏngdök, the first critical and major action on the
east coast, was at hand.

General Dean tried to give this front additional strength by assembling
there the advanced units of the 25th Infantry Division, commanded by
Maj.
Gen. William B. Kean. It was the second United
States division to be committed in the war and arrived in Korea between 10
and 15 July.

July 25, 1950

The
North Korean plan for the attack against Taegu from the west and southwest had
called for the
N.K. 10th Division to make a coordinated attack with the
N.K. 3rd
Division. The 10th Division so far had not been in combat. It had started from
Sukch'on for the front by rail
about 25 July.

The Taegu Front

General Walker's
primary objective
in August was to retain a foothold in Korea. From this he intended to launch an
attack later when his forces were of sufficient strength. Walker kept saying to
his key staff officers and to his principal commanders substantially the
following:

"You keep your mind on the fact that we will win this thing by attacking.
Never let an opportunity to attack pass. I want the capability and opportunity
to pass to the offensive. Until that time comes I want all commanders to
attack-to raid-to capture prisoners and thus keep the enemy off balance. If that
is done, more and more opportunities to hurt the enemy will arise and our troops
will be better prepared to pass to a general offensive when things are ripe.
[19-1]

General Walker wanted the foothold in Korea to include the rail route from
Pusan north through
Miryang to
Taegu, eastward to
KYŏngju, and back to Pusan.
(SeeMapIV.) This would make possible the logistical
support necessary for a breakout offensive later. To retain this circumferential
communication net, General Walker had to combine a fine sense of timing with a
judicious use of the small reserves he was able to assemble at any given time.
[19-2] He had to know just when to move his limited reserves and where. They had to
be at the right place and not too late. A study of the defensive fighting of the
Pusan Perimeter by Eighth Army and the ROK Army will reveal that Walker proved
himself a master in it.

The difficulty of forming a small reserve was one of the principal problems
that confronted the Eighth Army staff during
August and September 1950. It was a daily concern to the Eighth Army
commander. Colonel Landrum, Eighth Army's chief of staff during August,
considered it one of his most important daily tasks to find any unit that could
be "tagged" as an army reserve. This search included both Eighth Army and ROK
troops. It was considered a certainty that any troops so designated would be
committed somewhere on the Perimeter within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.
One of General Walker's daily greetings to his chief of staff was, "Landrum, how
many reserves have you dug up for me today?" [19-3]

General Walker left most of the headquarters work to his staff. He spent the
greater part of each day on visits to his combat units. It fell to
Colonel
Landrum to keep him fully informed of what had happened around the Perimeter
front during his absence from headquarters. Landrum did this every day when
Walker returned to Taegu. In addition to keeping in close touch with the army
G-2, G-3, and G-3, Air, Colonel Landrum made it a practice to telephone each
major combat unit sometime between 2200 and midnight
each night and talk with
the unit commander or the chief off staff about the situation on that part of
the front. This provided fresh information and reflected the state of mind of
the various commanders at that moment. On the basis of these nightly telephone
calls, General Walker often planned his trips the next day. He went where he
felt a serious situation was or might be developing. [19-4]

The central, or Taegu, front was to present its full measure of problems
involving the use of limited reserves hastily assembled from another part of the
perimeter. It was a sector where the Eighth Army commander needed to make a
reasonably correct appraisal of the situation day by day. For here several
corridors of approach southward converged on the valley of the Naktong, and the
enemy forces advancing down these corridors were assembling in relatively great
strength in close supporting distance of each other. The enemy frontal pressure
against Taegu developed concurrently with that on both flanks already described.

TheNorthKoreansCrosstheNaktongfortheAttackonTaegu

The enemy forces assembled in an arc around Taegu, from south to north, were
the N.K. 10th, 3rd, 15th, 13th, and
1stDivisions, and elements of the
105thArmoredDivision. They reached from
Tŭksŏng-dong on the south, northward around
Waegwan to
Kunwi. [19-5] This concentration north and west of Taegu indicated that
the North Koreans expected to use the natural corridor of the Naktong valley
from Sangju to Taegu as a principal axis of attack in the next phase of their
drive south. [19-6] (Map13)

(Map 13: THE N.K. ATTACKS ON TAEGU, 4-24 August 1950.)

THE TAEGU FRONT Page 337

Across the Naktong opposite the five North Korean divisions, in early August,
were, from south to north, the U.S.
1st Cavalry
Division and the
ROK 1st and 6th Divisions of the
ROK II Corps. The boundary between the 1st Cavalry
Division and the ROK 1st Division lay about two miles north of Waegwan and ten
air miles northwest of Taegu. The 70thDivision and part of the
3rdDivision were opposite the
1st Cavalry
Division. Opposite the
ROK 1st and 6th Divisions were part of the 3rd, and the 15th,
13th, and 1stDivisions, together with supporting units of
the
105th ArmoredDivision.

Like the 24th Infantry Division just south of it, the
1st Cavalry
Division
had a long front. From south to north, the
7th,
8th, and
5th Cavalry Regiments
were on line in that order. The two battalions of the 8th Cavalry Regiment west
of Taegu each had a front of about 10,000 yards.

August 8, 1950

At
Ch'ŏnan it left the
trains and continued southward on foot, passing through Taejon and arriving at
the Naktong opposite
Waegwan on or about 8 August.

August 10, 1950

There it received its combat orders two days
later
10 August. Its mission was to
cross the Naktong River in the vicinity of
Tŭksŏng-dong, penetrate east, and cut
the Taegu-Pusan main
supply road.

August 11, 1950

The division assembled in the
Koryong area the next day, 11 August.
There it was astride the
main highway running northeast to Taegu over a partially destroyed Naktong
bridge. [19-26]

Eighth Army purposely had not completely destroyed this bridge; it was passable
for foot soldiers but not
for vehicles. In its partially destroyed condition it
provided something of a trap if used by an enemy crossing
force, because the bridge and its approaches channeled any enemy movement over
it and were completely
covered by pre-registered mortar and artillery fire. To this was to be added the
fire of infantry weapons
located in good defensive positions on the hills near the river.

Two regiments of the N.K. 10th Division, the
29th on the south and the
25th on
the north, were to make
the assault crossing with the
27th Regiment in reserve. The commander of the
25th Regiment issued an
order on the eve of the crossing, stating that the objective was to "destroy the
enemy in Taegu City in
coordination with the 3d Infantry Division." [19-27]

The division [N.K. 10th Division] assembled in the
Koryong area the next day,
11 August. There it was
astride the main highway running northeast to Taegu over a partially destroyed
Naktong bridge. [19-26]

Eighth Army purposely had not completely destroyed this bridge; it was
passable for foot soldiers but not for vehicles. In its partially destroyed condition it provided something of a
trap if used by an enemy crossing force, because the bridge and its approaches
channeled any enemy movement over it and were completely covered by
pre-registered mortar and artillery fire. To this was to be added the fire of
infantry weapons located in good defensive positions on the hills near the
river.

Two regiments of the N.K. 10th Division, the
29th on the
south and the
25th on the north, were to make the assault crossing with
the
27thRegiment in reserve. The commander of the 25thRegiment issued an order on the eve of the crossing, stating that the
objective was to "destroy the enemy in Taegu City in coordination with the 3rd
InfantryDivision." [19-27]

The division assembled in the
Koryong area the next day, 11 August.
There it was astride the
main highway running northeast to Taegu over a partially destroyed Naktong
bridge. [19-26]

Eighth Army purposely had not completely destroyed this bridge; it was passable
for foot soldiers but not
for vehicles. In its partially destroyed condition it
provided something of a trap if used by an enemy crossing
force, because the bridge and its approaches channeled any enemy movement over
it and were completely
covered by pre-registered mortar and artillery fire. To this was to be added the
fire of infantry weapons
located in good defensive positions on the hills near the river.

Two regiments of the N.K. 10th Division, the
29th on the south and the
25th on
the north, were to make
the assault crossing with the
27th Regiment in reserve. The commander of the
25th Regiment issued an
order on the eve of the crossing, stating that the objective was to "destroy the
enemy in Taegu City in
coordination with the 3d Infantry Division." [19-27]

At Ch'onan it [N.K. 10thDivision] left the trains and continued
southward on foot, passing through
Taejŏn and arriving at the Naktong opposite
Waegwan on or about 8 August. [
It had started from
Sukch'on for the
front by rail about
25 July. ]

During the action in the southwest sector of the Pusan
Perimeter in the first two weeks of August the NKPA continued pressure on the
Taegu front. However, the NKPA having split off four of its crack divisions
(2nd;
4th;
6th; 9th
[sb
3rd) to fight in the southwest sector, its strength at Taegu was
greatly diminished.

Initially, only four NKPA divisions (1st;
3rd;
13th;
15th) remained to mount the attack on the main axis from the northwest. Three
of these divisions (1st; 3rd; 15th) had been severely mauled in earlier fighting
and probably were at no more than half strength (about 5,000 men). The 13th,
activated in June 1950, was not well trained or
battle-experienced. A fifth
division (10th) was added to the Taegu front
in early August. However, it, too,
was green and had no combat experience, and furthermore, the Army historian
wrote, it was saddled with "inept" commanders.[8-1]

Beyond that, the NKPA plan to take Taegu
was not well conceived. Rather than concentrate the five divisions (about
35,000 men) for a massed attack along a single line of advance from the
northwest, the NKPA spread them fanwise, across a forty mile arc of the
perimeter, to conduct, in effect, five separate attacks down several roads.
None of the individual attacks had sufficient force behind it to exploit a
breakthrough.

* * *

Walker had three divisions (about
35,000 men) defending the northwest sector: the
1st Cav
and the
ROK 1st and
6th
divisions. The 1st Cav, dug in behind the Naktong River directly west of Taegu,
held a sector which stretched along the meandering Naktong, south to north,
from Yongp'o to Waegwan. The ROK 1st Division held a sector from Waegwan north
along the Naktong to the town of Naktong. The ROK 6th Division continued the
line eastward.[8-2]

August 12, 1950

Over the next two days
Clainos and his Clouters mounted a powerful and devastating counterattack
in the
1/5 sector. Of the 1,000 NKPA troops that got across the Naktong, 700
were killed, wounded, or captured. The remaining 300 fled back across the river
to find that the once-mighty
3rd Division victors at the Kum River and
Taejŏn had been reduced to a disorganized unit of barely 2,500 men. Its
abortive attack on the 5th Cav, the Army historian wrote, had been a
"catastrophe," and it could pose no further serious threat to
Taegu.[8-13]

The next NKPA attack came at
Yongp'o, where
the
2/7 faced the road from
Koryong. The assault was mounted by the ineptly
led, green
NKPA 10th Division, which had only just arrived at Koryong. Its
attack was probably planned to coincide with that of the NKPA 3rd Division, but
something went wrong. The 10th Division did not jump off until
August 12, three
days behind the 3rd, a lapse that gave
Hap Gay time to redeploy Clainos's
Clouters.

The
10th Division did not jump
off until August 12, three
days behind the
3rd, a lapse that gave
Hap Gay
time to redeploy Clainos's
Clouters.

The
2/7 now had a new, aggressive, and
battle-experienced commander. He was
Gilman A. Huff, a former enlisted man who
had won a battlefield commission and numerous medals for valor in the ETO. He
was "a strange individual," Gay wrote, a "trial" and a
"drunk" when resting but a wonderful" fighter
in war.

The 2/7 was backed by the steady
77th FAB.
Its commander,
William A. ("Billy") Harris, was a West Point (1933) classmate of
Pete Clainos
and an aggressive and colorful officer. He was one of two sons of a retired
Army major general and the nephew of West Pointer General Peter C. Harris, who
had been the powerful adjutant general of the Army in World War I and
afterward. Billy's older brother, Hunter, one year ahead of him at West Point,
was a well-known Air Force bomber expert who had, in 1950, been selected as a
brigadier general, and was to go on to four stars.

These high Army connections had probably
saved Billy Harris from being washed out of West Point. In 1933, when he was a
first classman (senior), standing high in his class, he developed such severe stomach
trouble" that the medical department recommended he not graduate. Learning
of this,
Army Chief of Staff Douglas MacArthur summoned Harris to Washington
for a personal interview. Standing at attention, knees knocking, Harris made a
good case for being allowed to graduate. "Do you think you're well enough
to be an officer?" MacArthur asked.

"Yes, sir," Harris replied.

"I do
too," MacArthur said, concluding the interview and dismissing Cadet
Harris. "Go back to West Point."

In World War II, while older brother Hunter was
gaining fame and glory in the Eighth Air Force, Billy was stuck in an ETO staff
job, albeit one of the most fascinating and
hush-hush in the theater. He was
a senior American representative on the British conceived deception plan for
the Overlord invasion. Known as Fortitude, the plan was designed to convince
Hitler and his generals that Overlord was a feint, that the real invasion would
come at the Pas de Calais and in Norway. The job cleared Harris for Ultra
(information from breaking the German military codes) and other high-level
secrets, but it denied him a combat command. He finished out the war in the ETO
on
Omar Bradley's Twelfth Army Group intelligence staff and then spent three
postwar years in the Pentagon, still suffering from a bad stomach.

By 0900, however, the 2nd Battalion, with the powerful help of the
77th
Field Artillery Battalion and of air strikes, drove the enemy troops back
through Yongp'o toward the bridge and dispersed them. [19-23]

It could not be assumed that this failure would end the efforts of the N.K.
10thDivision west of Taegu. In the three days from
10 to 12
August the Naktong River had dropped three feet and was only shoulder-deep at
many places. The opportunity for large-scale enemy crossings was at hand. [19-30]